2016 SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
- December 6th – December 11th, 2016
- Windsor, Ontario, Canada
- WFCU Centre
- SCM (25m)
- Prelims: 9:30 AM EST/Finals: 6:30 PM EST
- Start Lists/Results
- Live Stream ($)
Reported by Robert Gibbs
MEN’S 200 FREESTYLE – FINAL
- 2014 World Champion: Chad le Clos (RSA), 1:41.45
- World Record: Paul Biedermann (GER), 1:39.37, 2009
Championship Record: Ryan Lochte (USA), 1:41.08, 2010
GOLD: Park Tae Hwan (KOR), 1:41.03
SILVER: Chad le Clos (RSA), 1:41.64
BRONZE: Aleksandr Krashnykh, 1:41.95
We expected an Olympic silver medalist in this event to take it out fast, but we were thinking it would be the 2016 silver medalist, not the 2008 and 2012 one. Indeed, Park Tae Hwan of South Korea cooked out some outside smoke from lane 1, emerging as the leader after the first 50, and holding on the rest of the way to win a new championship record time of 1:41.03.
2016 Rio silver medalist, Chad le Clos, meanwhile, used a very different strategy than we saw in Rio. While he at first appeared to be among the leaders, he faded to 8th at the halfway point, and was still only in 7th at the 150 mark, but was the only man under 25 in the final 50. He appeared to be making a move for the victory, but ran out of pool, and ended up 2nd. In doing so, he passed Aleksandr Krashnykh, who was in 2nd place at the 150, and settled for bronze. Dylan Carter managed to knock over half a second off his top seeded time from this morning, but it wasn’t enough to pick up a medal, as he finished 4th.
